martes, 1 de abril de 2008

Radha Govinda Swami Katha in Agra Jail

Out of his kindness and mercy, Sri Radha Govinda Maharaja agreed to do 3 days of Bhagwat Katha in Agra Central Jail last week. All the prisoners and jail authorities thouroughly appreciated Maharaja’s lectures and the ecstatic kirtana of the ISKCON devotees. Since we have been regularly preaching there, they now have their own kirtan group that every day does Prabhupada’s Guru Puja, kirtan for one hour, and then reads from Bhagavad Gita As It Is. There are a few prisoners that do 64 rounds, at least a dozen that do 16 rounds, and many others who are chanting rounds.

You can see in the one picture that their chanting party has come to greet us holding Srila Prabhupada’s picture high over their heads and tossing flower petals on the devotees. Very enthusiatically they escorted us with kirtan to the hall where the program was to take place. It hardly appears to be a jail as they have planted so many trees in the entrance avenue as you can see in the next picture. Arriving at the hall they hardly wanted to stop kirtan and ended loudly with, “Jaya Prabhupada! Jaya Prabhupada! Jaya Prabhupada!”

After garlanding all the devotees and a brief introduction, Maharaja began his lecture starting from how Krishna Himself was born in jail. He very sweetly described the pastime and then lectured very extensively on the four maha sins that keep us in this material jail. All the prisoners sat very attentively listening and you can see them happily responding to Maharaja getting them to chant the mahamantra. This was followed by an ecstatic kirtan led by myself. All the prisoners were jumping up and down and dancing as you see in the photo. All the prisoners applauded very loudly at the end of Maharaja’s lecture.

This program continued on for two more days and the crowd and enthusiasm increased each day. I don’t think anyone has ever done Bhagwat Katha in jail before. The prisoners reciprocated that on the next day at the entrance of the hall, they made a colorful mandala to greet Maharaja and all the devotees. On the last day, burn-your-finger-hot pure ghee halevah prasada was distributed to almost three thousand prisoners. This was sponsored by our Vrinda Kunda Temple and cooked in the jail by our own devotees. The whole atmosphere of the jail was changed into Goloka Vrindavan!

To see the enthusiasm of these prisoners makes me think there must be a real silver lining to being arrested, convicted and incarcerated. It is beneficial for the criminal.

When we get the results of good karma, such as wealth, beauty, high birth and good education, it is easy to become intoxicated by the enjoying mentality and think, “Why should I worship Krishna now? I have more important things to do.” But when you are in jail there is not much else to do.

I do not have much experience being in jail, but one time I was pulled over for a traffic violation and the cops discovered my license had been suspended. I had gotten a “fix it” ticket (for a broken tail light), shortly before I moved from the Miami Beach temple to go to University of Maryland. I never bothered to change to a Maryland license, and my mail had not been forwarded so I did not know my Florida license was suspended. They put me in handcuffs and stuck me in a holding cell with all the drunks and disorderlies.

Before being arrested I was in anxiety, thinking about getting my school work done and preparing for exams, but once I was locked up, presumably for the whole night, a feeling of peace came over me. I realized there was nothing I could do about my school assignments, and started chanting to myself and meditating. I can’t explain it. It is not as if my “responsibilities” had disappeared, but I guess I at least had a good excuse for not worrying about them: there was definitely nothing I could do to take care of them.

It turned out I did not spend the night in the cell. H.H. Trivikrama Swami or one of the brahmacaris (maybe Apauraseya Prabhu) came down and got me before long.

Maybe I am just in the mode of ignorance, looking for excuses not to do my service. Another time Urukrama Prabhu and I were arrested in Gulfport or Biloxi down at the Mississippi/Alabama border for soliciting on book distribution, and Urukrama chastised me because upon being arrested I had become peaceful and happy. He was in transcendental anxiety about not being able to distribute books, but he could notice how cheerful I was even in the back of the police cruiser, so he pointed out my error and “gave me the sauce.”

But anyway, it does seem like being in prison, cut off from the cares and activities of the outside world, can be a good opportunity and motivation to focus on the hearing and chanting that will actually help us progress towards life’s true goal.

Nice to see that even convicted felons are getting the mercy of Lord Caitanya! Here in the USA, we have a similar program (Prison Ministry).

One thing is preaching to criminals in jails; quite another thing is to assimilated them into ISKCON. Many, in ISKCON, feel uneasy about doing that with convicted criminals, specially people who have committed murder.

One important policy that should be established in ISKCON — and so far I haven’t seen anywhere — is that Temple authorities should do what we call, here in the USA, “background checks.”

Temple management should be ver aware that convicted felons do commit crimes again. In other words the likelihood of getting into trouble with law is much higher for an ex-convict that it is for a someone who has never been jailed.

In this day and age of lawsuits (at least in the West), integrating ex-convicts into ISKCON should be approached very carefully and control it very diligently.